Conversion of artificial recurrent neural networks to spiking neural networks for low-power neuromorphic hardware

In recent years the field of neuromorphic low-power systems gained significant momentum, spurring brain-inspired hardware systems which operate on principles that are fundamentally different from standard digital computers and thereby consume orders of magnitude less power. However, their wider use is still hindered by the lack of algorithms that can harness the strengths of such architectures. While neuromorphic adaptations of representation learning algorithms are now emerging, the efficient processing of temporal sequences or variable length-inputs remains difficult, partly due to challenges in representing and configuring the dynamics of spiking neural networks. Recurrent neural networks (RNN) are widely used in machine learning to solve a variety of sequence learning tasks. In this work we present a train-and-constrain methodology that enables the mapping of machine learned (Elman) RNNs on a substrate of spiking neurons, while being compatible with the capabilities of current and near-future neuromorphic systems. This “train-and-constrain” method consists of first training RNNs using backpropagation through time, then discretizing the weights and finally converting them to spiking RNNs by matching the responses of artificial neurons with those of the spiking neurons. We demonstrate our approach by mapping a natural language processing task (question classification), where we demonstrate the entire mapping process of the recurrent layer of the network on IBM's Neurosynaptic System TrueNorth, a spike-based digital neuromorphic hardware architecture. TrueNorth imposes specific constraints on connectivity, neural and synaptic parameters. To satisfy these constraints, it was necessary to discretize the synaptic weights to 16 levels, discretize the neural activities to 16 levels, and to limit fan-in to 64 inputs. Surprisingly, we find that short synaptic delays are sufficient to implement the dynamic (temporal) aspect of the RNN in the question classification task. Furthermore we observed that the discretization of the neural activities is beneficial to our train-and-constrain approach. The hardware-constrained model achieved 74% accuracy in question classification while using less than 0.025% of the cores on one TrueNorth chip, resulting in an estimated power consumption of ≈ 17μW.